Venezuela: (In)Justice in the immoral Bolivarian revolution

10.06.05 | Chavez’ Bolivarian revolution has always managed to disguise the lack of ethics and scruples of their leaders by always twisting or hiding the reality of what they do. They manipulate justice by following procedures, bending the rules, pressuring the judges and handpicking prosecutors. If the case is against their own, it gets shelved. If an opposition figure bothers them, they find something to charge them with. After that, you delay the trial, that way you can always call accuse these people of being corrupt, coup plotters or whatever, because in the Bolivarian Justice system you are guilty until proven innocent. Unless you are part of the process…

For months, the Governor of Guarico state, a Chavez supporter from the Patria Para Todos party has been accused of using his political police to kill, torture and abuse innocent civilians. We are not talking corruption here. We are talking outright murder, torture under the impassive eyes of Governor Manuitt, who directly managed and led the political police of Guarico state, which is accused of committing the atrocities. The case became such a political hot potato that nobody wanted to touch it. But the case was so outrageous, so monstrous, that it was pro-Chávez Deputies who brought it to the National Assembly and called for an investigation.

A few times it looked like the case would get nowhere. Some asked for the Governor’s resignation. There was even an announcement that there could be a meeting between the Governor and Chavez to look for a "solution" to the problem. But the the committee of the National Assembly that was considering the case refused to budge. Under the leadership of pro-Chavez Deputies it continued investigating the charges. Two days ago, the final report concluded that Governor Manuitt was at least politically responsible for the human rights abuses and should be tried. The next step? A vote by the full National Assembly on the report by the committee.

But it was not to be. Using the same obscene and immoral style that has characterized Justice in the Bolivarian revolution, the President of the National Assembly Nicolas Maduro, created another committee to review the report because according to him “there was hate and animosity” on the part of some members of the committee. That from a man who only speaks with hate and animosity anytime he refers to somebody even remotely connected to the opposition. Similarly his wife (or whatever), Deputy Cilia Flores said the results of the report were “contaminated” and its results were not impartial. I guess she is impartial, simply parroting all the time whatever her hubby says.

Well, first of all, there is no such procedure in the laws and bylaws of the Assembly, the report has to be considered by the full Assembly, and nothing else has validity. Second, the report was approved by a vote of 14 to 1, with three members of the 18 member committee not being present. The lone dissenting voice was a member of Manuitt’s political party. The other fourteen, were both MVR and opposition members, all of which voted in favor of the report. Imagine what grotesque evidence there was in the information gathered by the committee that there could be agreement, for once, between the two political sides which are always disagreeing with each other.

But Nicolas Maduro, the MVR President of the Assembly has acted in the same autocratic style that Chávez and his cohorts have been acting like in the last six years. If they don’t like the outcome, they interfere with it and change it, even if it violates the law.

But if this was not disgusting enough, they do not even have the decency to hide why they object the report. It is not because they disagree with it or they have evidence which favors Manuitt. No, it is because this is “bad” for the revolution or this damages a “true” revolutionary or is bad for the image of the "process". Chavista after Chavista came out today saying such incredibly unscrupulous things like:

Deputy
Ismael Garcia (Podemos): “This is a very negative precedent… political passions should not affect a consummate revolutionary like Manuitt”

Jose
Albornoz (PPT); “This is an attack against the revolutionary process”

Meanwhile the Governor himself said he “accepted with respect” the decision by the “National Assembly” as if Maduro’s abuse of power could even come close to representing that body.

With this case, justice in the revolution has reached a new low. Even when powers controlled by the revolution reach a decision against one of their own, the case is interfered with and short circuited by those at the highest levels of power.

Meanwhile, you wonder what the surviving victims of the abuses and the relatives of those killed are feeling or thinking. They largely come from the lowest strata of the Venezuelan population. The same ones that thought that the “process” would bring more justice and prosperity to their lives. “El pueblo”, that we hear so much about, but who continues to be the victim of those that claim to love them so much. But the truth is that only the “process”, the “revolution” and its leaders really matter. The rest, be it justice, morality or pueblo, is largely irrelevant.